Decision-Making Processes in Controlling Exposure to Sunlight Supported by Simulation Tools: A Case Study in Warm Weather

Mariana Huskinson, Antonio Galiano-Garrigós, Ángel Benigno González-Avilés and M. Isabel Pérez-Millán
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Mariana Huskinson: Department of Architectural Constructions, University of Alicante, 03690 San Vicente del Raspeig (Alicante), Spain
Antonio Galiano-Garrigós: Department of Architectural Constructions, University of Alicante, 03690 San Vicente del Raspeig (Alicante), Spain
Ángel Benigno González-Avilés: Department of Architectural Constructions, University of Alicante, 03690 San Vicente del Raspeig (Alicante), Spain
M. Isabel Pérez-Millán: Department of Architectural Constructions, University of Alicante, 03690 San Vicente del Raspeig (Alicante), Spain

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 14, 1-30

Abstract: Improving the energy performance of existing buildings is one of the main strategies defined by the European Union to reduce global energy costs. Amongst the actions to be carried out in buildings to achieve this objective is working with passive measures adapted to each type of climate. To assist designers in the process of finding appropriate solutions for each building and location, different tools have been developed and since the implementation of building information modeling (BIM), it has been possible to perform an analysis of a building’s life cycle from an energy perspective and other types of analysis such as a comfort analysis. In the case of Spain, the first BIM environment tool has been implemented that deals with the global analysis of a building’s behavior and serves as an alternative to previous methods characterized by their lack of both flexibility and information offered to designers. This paper evaluates and compares the official Spanish energy performance evaluation tool (Cypetherm) released in 2018 using a case study involving the installation of sunlight control devices as part of a building refurbishment. It is intended to determine how databases and simplifications affect the designer’s decision-making. Additionally, the yielded energy results are complemented by a comfort analysis to explore the impact of these improvements from a users’ wellbeing viewpoint. At the end of the process the yielded results still confirm that the simulation remains far from reality and that simulation tools can indeed influence the decision-making process.

Keywords: energy demand; energy consumption; simulations; shading systems; energy performance; solar radiation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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